1885 in the United Kingdom

Events from the year 1885 in the United Kingdom.

Incumbents

Events

January – Socialist League formed as a breakaway from the Social Democratic Federation by William Morris, Eleanor Marx and others.
17 January – Mahdist War: British victory at the Battle of Abu Klea.
24 January
* Irish terrorists damage Westminster Hall and the Tower of London with dynamite.
* Edge Hill College opens in Liverpool.
26 January – Mahdist War: in Sudan, following the Siege of Khartoum, British and Egyptian forces are defeated by the Mahdist Sudanese. The British commander Charles George Gordon is killed.
4 February – The National Association for Employment of Reserve and Discharged Soldiers is set up to help ex-military personnel find civilian jobs.
23 February – The executioner at HM Prison Exeter fails after several attempts to hang John 'Babbacombe' Lee, sentenced for the murder of his employer Emma Keyse; Lee's sentence is commuted to life imprisonment.
26 February – The Berlin Conference concludes with the major European powers including the United Kingdom establishing their spheres of influence in the "scramble for Africa".
14 March – Gilbert and Sullivan's comic opera The Mikado opens at the Savoy Theatre in London.
26 March – First legal cremation in England: widowed painter Jeanette Pickersgill of London, "well known in literary and scientific circles", is cremated by the Cremation Society at Woking Crematorium in Surrey.
31 March – The United Kingdom establishes a protectorate over Bechuanaland.
29 April – Women are permitted to take the University of Oxford entrance examination for the first time.
5 June – Niger River basin becomes a British protectorate.
8 June – Second defeat of the Gladstone ministry: William Ewart Gladstone's Liberal government is defeated in a vote of no confidence on the budget following criticism of the fall of Khartoum and violence in Ireland.
9 June – Gladstone resigns and Robert Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury forms a new Conservative government.
18 June – Clifton Hall Colliery disaster: an explosion kills 178 in Salford.
24 June – Lord Randolph Churchill becomes Secretary of State for India.
25 June – Redistribution of Seats Act improves apportionment of seats in the House of Commons.
26 June – John Everett Millais granted a baronetcy, the first artist to accept a hereditary title.
6–9 July – Eliza Armstrong case: Campaigning journalist W. T. Stead publishes a series of articles in the Pall Mall Gazette entitled The Maiden Tribute of Modern Babylon exposing the extent of female child prostitution in London.
20 July – The Football Association recognises professional players in England.
22 July – Caister Lifeboat capsizes: 8 of 15 crew are killed.
7 August – Criminal Law Amendment Act passes through Parliament, raising the age of consent from 13 to 16, and thereby outlawing child prostitution. The Labouchere Amendment to the Act outlaws "gross indecency" between males.
August – National Vigilance Association established "for the enforcement and improvement of the laws for the repression of criminal vice and public immorality".
12 September
* Bury F.C., formed in a meeting between the Bury Wesleyans and Bury Unitarians Football Clubs, play at Gigg Lane for the first time, beating a Wigan team 4–3.
* Arbroath 36–0 Bon Accord, the all-time largest margin of victory in professional football.
29 September – Opening of the Blackpool tramway, the first to be electrically powered.
30 September – A British force abolishes the Boer republic of Stellaland and adds it to British Bechuanaland.
October – Third Burmese War begins.
3 October – Millwall F.C. is founded by workers on the Isle of Dogs in London as Millwall Rovers.
23 November – 1885 United Kingdom general election: Liberals under Gladstone hold the largest number of seats, but Salisbury remains Prime Minister with the support of the Irish Party.
28 November – British occupy Mandalay; Burma annexed to British India.

Undated

early – John Kemp Starley of Coventry demonstrates the first Rover safety bicycle, the first practical example of the modern bicycle.
A modern pedestal flush toilet is demonstrated by Frederick Humpherson of the Beaufort Works, Chelsea.
Soldiers' and Sailors' Families Association established to provide charitable assistance.
Soap manufacturer Lever Brothers founded.
Completion of Sway Tower in Hampshire, England, designed by Andrew Peterson using concrete made with Portland cement. It remains the world's tallest non-reinforced concrete structure.
"Glasgow Boys" painters first exhibit collectively, at the Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts.
Stanhope Forbes' Newlyn School painting A Fish Sale on a Cornish Beach.

Publications

Richard Francis Burton's The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night: A Plain and Literal Translation of the Arabian Nights Entertainments.Dictionary of National Biography begins publication under the editorship of Leslie Stephen.
A. V. Dicey's text Introduction to the Study of the Law of the Constitution.
H. Rider Haggard's novel King Solomon's Mines.
George Meredith's novel Diana of the Crossways.
Daniel Owen's long novel Hunangofiant Rhys Lewis, Gweinidog Bethel, the first written in Welsh.
Walter Pater's novel Marius the Epicurean.
Old Testament in the Revised Version of The Bible.The Lady, "a journal for gentlewomen", is first published.

Births

21 January – Duncan Grant, painter
24 January – Marjory Stephenson, biochemist
25 January – William Wand, Bishop of London
26 January – Harry Ricardo, mechanical engineer
16 February – Will Fyffe, Scottish music hall entertainer
25 February – Princess Alice of Battenberg
7 March – John Tovey, admiral of the fleet
11 March – Malcolm Campbell, land and water racer
1 May – A. V. Alexander, politician
6 June – Roy Fedden, aircraft engine designer
9 June – John Edensor Littlewood, mathematician
22 June – James Maxton, Scottish socialist, leader of the Independent Labour Party
18 August – A. E. J. Collins, cricketer and soldier
11 September – D. H. Lawrence, novelist

Deaths

26 January – Charles George Gordon, general
1 February – Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, inventor
15 March – Jane Williams (Ysgafell), writer
18 March – Sir Thomas Bazley, 1st Baronet, industrialist and politician
20 March – Christopher Wordsworth, Anglican bishop and Biblical commentator
22 March – Sir Harry Parkes, diplomat
8 April – Susanna Moodie, writer on Canada
5 June – Sir Julius Benedict, composer and conductor
12 June – Fleeming Jenkin, engineer
6 July – Henry Corry Rowley Becher, lawyer, politician and author
28 July – Sir Moses Montefiore, Jewish financier and philanthropist
8 August – Charles Wood, 1st Viscount Halifax, politician
11 August – Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton, man of letters and politician
30 August – Thomas Thornycroft, sculptor
1 October – Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, politician and philanthropist
9 October – John Bowes, art collector
26 November – Thomas Andrews, chemist